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ADSL speed problem on exchange activate line

Hi, I'm new to the forum so please excuse me if this is a simple question.

I am connected at 512k to a tiny exchange on the Isle of Skye. This is an Exchange Activate scheme exchange which means I can only ever get 512k and can only go to Scotnet or BT Internet for a service. It is also limited, I understand, to 30 subscribers per exchange.

Up till a couple of weeks ago I was getting excellent speeds approaching the maximum on both the machines we have networked here to share the line.
Now something has changed. In the evenings and at weekends, on weekdays starting between 4 and 6pm the service suddenly deteriorates to the point where it is unuseable.

That is to say performance worse than a 9600 modem!

There are windows during the evening when things temporarily improve and occasionally we have a whole evening off but mostly we effectively have no service at those times.

I understand contention but this is way beyond the 50:1 limitation even supposing that was likely. I have complained to Scotnet and so far they have just got BT to check the line during working hors and, surprise surprise they have found nothing wrong.

Not that I expected it to cure the problem I have tried different DSL modem/routers and different DNS servers but nothing has worked.

I just want to know if anyone has resolved a similar problem or has any suggestions as to where I go from here. :shrug:

Brian
 
you need to report this to your ISP and raise a fault with them. It is contention and if its limited to 30 ppl shouldn't have happened.

Also just to be sure check your pcs for any spyware programs or trojans also runa virus killer jut to be able to tell them you have checked your end for all the problems that could slow you down.
 
also, you've not exceeded a CAP of FUP (limits the ISP puts on the amount you can download a month) there likely to slow your connection right down if you have untill the start of the next billing month.
 
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Thanks for the replies.

I *have* taken this up with Scotnet, my ISP, but so far have drawn a blank. They have had BT check the line but I think this is limited to pinging me and it was done during the daytime when I have no problems.

As it happens I have just checked my PC for trojans etc and I'm completely free. As I would expect, as I'm running Kaspersky and ZoneAlarm. Also the problems are uniquely limited to after 4pm in the day and all day at weekends. I find it difficult to think of a problem with my setup that could be time sensitive in this way.

Is it possible that my exchange could have been set up so that contention does not work properly? The bursty way that the restriction in speed presents itself suggets that maybe just one user on my exchange is somehow getting allocated all the bandwidth and I only get in during breaks in his useage. Bear in mind that my exchange serves just a couple of hundred households, mostly crofters. I suspect there are probably only 10 or so broadband users on the exchange at all.

I talked to the BT engineers a couple of months ago when they were recabling the area and they told me that they had no network savvy people on the island to speak of and operated the systems with the instruction book in one hand. Any difficult problems involves going to Inverness or Fort William for help.

Any other suggestions?

Brian
 
Yes tell tehm to get an expert over from the mainland to sort it out.
 
Kits said:
Yes tell tehm to get an expert over from the mainland to sort it out.
Surely though I am not allowed by BT to contact them directly except for strictly voice telephony matters. I always understood this to be the case.

Brian
 
xrdbear said:
Surely though I am not allowed by BT to contact them directly except for strictly voice telephony matters. I always understood this to be the case.

Brian

Perhaps true.. ok

first take speed tests at regular times throught out the day and everyday at different times for a week or more. Send copies to your ISP asking them to get an expert from BT mainland to look at them and sort out the exchange as the island has noone who knows they use a handbook. Tell them how you know. If you have nothing sorted then let tehm know you are going to trading standards and OFCOM either way its BT at fault and just maybe the person taking all the bandwidth is a BT employee looking after himself.
 
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Kits said:
Perhaps true.. ok

first take speed tests at regular times throught out the day and everyday at different times for a week or more. Send copies to your ISP asking them to get an expert from BT mainland to look at them and sort out the exchange as the island has noone who knows they use a handbook. Tell them how you know. If you have nothing sorted then let tehm know you are going to trading standards and OFCOM either way its BT at fault and just maybe the person taking all the bandwidth is a BT employee looking after himself.

I have already done and sent speed tests and also lots of traceroutes with and without -d switch as they requested. As for your last suggestion that had occured to me already. We must have the same suspicious mind;)

Brian
 
Update

Long discussion with Scotnet and tinkering with MTU's and things. No improvement. At 16.30 the shutters came down and the bandwidth disappeared as usual.

The big new bit of information is I have contacted a neighbour with broadband. They have exactly the same problem at the same time as me and they are connected to BT Openworld.

I think it is a fair bet now that what we have is an exchange settings problem that is allowing one user to grab all the bandwidth. It's probably a child that comes home from school at 16.30 and starts file sharing. The problem seems frequently to go away around 18.00 when he has his dinner and then comes back at around 21.00 until he goes to bed at about 1am.

I have persuaded my neighbour to complain to BT Openworld and emphasise that they have a neighbour with the same problem. Hopefully BT might put 2 and 2 together; or am I hoping too much?

Brian
 
it all depends on what the VP state is and the QOS settings on the VLAN's to the exchange, you are right in it is a couple of users using it for heavy downloading more than likely responsable for it.

Have your ISP raised it to BT and what have the come back with? you can get it esailated inside BT if the fault is still there as it is only some monkeys infront of some program running tests taking what the software says is the truth.

Best way to have it fully recognised by BT normally is if you do the speedtests while logged into their test systems with the username speedtest@speedtest_domain and do the tests through:

http://speedtester.bt.com

You dont say what speed your on so for a 512 anything over 100kbps is fine (but you should ask for a fault to be logged on it anyway unless its your ISP's connections to BT.
 
ManOfMeans said:
it all depends on what the VP state is and the QOS settings on the VLAN's to the exchange, you are right in it is a couple of users using it for heavy downloading more than likely responsable for it.

Have your ISP raised it to BT and what have the come back with? you can get it esailated inside BT if the fault is still there as it is only some monkeys infront of some program running tests taking what the software says is the truth.

Best way to have it fully recognised by BT normally is if you do the speedtests while logged into their test systems with the username speedtest@speedtest_domain and do the tests through:

http://speedtester.bt.com

You dont say what speed your on so for a 512 anything over 100kbps is fine (but you should ask for a fault to be logged on it anyway unless its your ISP's connections to BT.

Actually I said in the first line of the original post that I am on 512 ;)

My ISP has already gone through the initial stages of complaining to BT and got back the basic answers like, yes his telephone line is working and yes we can ping him.

BT's response included the veiled threat that further complaints might incur costs to the ISP :mad:

Scotnet have however raised the problem again with BT citing possible ATM fragmentation, whatever that is, but have not yet responded to me on the information that there is another user next door with the same problem which rather points the finger at the exchange.

Thanks for the info on the BT speedtest domain. When the problem is evident again this evening I will give it a go but when things are really bad it's not even possible to carry out a speed test. I've had connection rates last night which average out to something like
10 bits per sec. In other words, nothing.

Brian
 
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Hi xrdbear

If it looks like you are not geting anywhere and the ISP isn't I can give you BT's CEO email address to send him speed tests and explain you know it should be the ISP but BT are not responding to the complaints. Explain all the issues and cc a copy to your ISP so they can perhaps also contact him backing you up.
 
Kits said:
Hi xrdbear

If it looks like you are not geting anywhere and the ISP isn't I can give you BT's CEO email address to send him speed tests and explain you know it should be the ISP but BT are not responding to the complaints. Explain all the issues and cc a copy to your ISP so they can perhaps also contact him backing you up.

That's a good offer. I'll take you up on it if I get to the suicidal stage.
While I was out shopping BT phoned and left a message. They say they want to carry out some tests with me but as I was not in I now have to contact my ISP. I have a dreadful feeling we are going to start again at the 'please connect your computer directly to the master socket stuff' and' disconnect any other extensions you have'.
I'm a bit disabled and there is no way I can carry my computer around the house and anyway, we should be way beyond this stage now given the circumstances.

We'll see. I hope you don't mind if I keep you posted on this.

Brian
 
BT speed tests

Just a bit of information in case anybody tries this.

Right at the moment I am getting periods of no bandwidth as I described earlier. I was advised in an earlier post to use the BT speedtester to get results that BT would believe, so I have been trying to do just that. However, I have to do several speedtests in order to make sure that I catch the system when the speed is poor.

It turns out that BT won't let you do that and effectively limits you to a couple of tests and then make you wait 30mins with the threat of reporting you to your ISP if you make more attempts.

Really helpful.

Brian
 
you dont have to keep doing them when you kow its bad go and do one speed test then leave it. If you need to keep testing then use adslguide or dslzones and do BTs when they show your speed as too low.
 
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